


you are spring incarnate

by aphchina



Category: Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-11
Updated: 2017-04-11
Packaged: 2018-10-17 16:55:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10598214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aphchina/pseuds/aphchina
Summary: the doctor furrows her brow and opens her mouth."it's called hanahaki byou."





	

**Author's Note:**

> i wanted to try writing a fic with no proper capitalization because i feel it adds a certain atmosphere? so here it is, tell me if it changed anything!

being in the hospital is nothing new. if anything, the pale white rooms are more a home than his actual home is. it's the norm to be pathetically sick, to lay in a flimsy gown and stare at the ceiling. to feel death so close, to have a doctor stand by his bed with a steely look in their eyes and a folder clenched a little too tight.

he waits for the words to come.

"your dementia-" "it seems the cancer has-" "a mental, not physical-"

he waits.

the doctor furrows her brow and opens her mouth.

"it's called hanahaki byou."

.

he does not tell anyone, and they do not ask. 

after all, "komaeda's in the hospital," is an expected statement when his desk is empty for days on end. 

his friends visit, but they do not pry. it's almost as though they think he cares whether they bring it up. as if he's afraid to die. 

he's not, of course.

"komaeda-kun, you lost again." nanami will say, and he will give her a small smile. 

"of course, nanami-san. don't i always?"

"i brought you some books from home." hinata will say, dumping them on his bed. "you can read them til you feel better." 

and komaeda will smile again, sadder this time, more genuinely this time.

"thank you, hinata-kun. i trust your taste in literature is incredible."

and when they leave, his smile will fade and he'll stop holding back the violent cough and the shaking shoulders.

out of his mouth falls red on red on red on red

.

"hanahaki byou," the doctor says, voice steady, "is not a disease that modern medicine can cure."

his eyes are still on the ceiling. he does not blink.

"the cause, they say, is unrequited love. it- it may be a mental affliction, like how widows die of heart attacks soon after their partner's deaths, or someone may slip into a coma due to depression, but..." the doctor fidgets, eyes averting from a gaze that komaeda is not training on her.

"hanahaki byou is known to be fatal. the petals.... they will suffocate you, eventually." 

his body affirms this, punctuating his next exhale with bloody coughs.

red petals and red blood and red on red on red on red

.

he does not, in fact, feel sick.

the random bouts of coughing and the shaking do not hinder anything except his ability to breathe. there is no pain, no ache.

it is not like before, when the room would swirl and his lucidity would shift in and out, in and out.

he does not feel dizzy, he does not feel weak.

"if it weren't for your other complications, you likely wouldn't have to stay here at all," the nurse tells him one day. "but we can't take a chance with someone as frail as you. a simple coughing fit could send you to the ER."

he does not reply, does not mourn the fact that he is trapped in his white room. 

he has always been a caged bird, limited by luck and talent and inadequacy. 

no, he stays in bed though he feels fine, and coughs up blood and flowers, the petals falling from his mouth reminding him of his place every day.

.

he goes out, one day. he has permission from the doctor and hinata is adamant in him seeing the cherry blossoms.

they were beautiful to him, once, before he became sick, and he'd be surprised that someone remembered if it'd been anyone other than hinata.

the flowers fall on his lap, on the bench, on hinata's hair. the flowers are making him sick, the light pink petals reminding him of the blood red ones he's sure to see later.

hinata passes him kusamochi.

"thank you, hinata-kun," he says, voice flat, "being so nice to someone like me is truly too kind of you."

an annoyed look passes over the other boy's face, but he doesn't say anything. it's a sign he likely wants komaeda to shut up. he doesn't.

"you know, if i die, hinata-kun, you can have my desk. you could probably see the board better from there. i want you to reach your highest potential, after all." 

"do you ever think about anything other than our school?" hinata says, and there is a layer of anger under his disbelief. 

"yes," komaeda smiles at him, soft and teasingly, "i think about you, too. you're so talented and yet, you still spend time with me. doesn't it put a damper on your hope?"

"nevermind. i shouldn't have asked. giving you an opportunity to speak freely is almost always a disaster." he looks away, thoroughly annoyed, and the sad atmosphere from earlier is gone.

komaeda's smile twinkles in his eyes.

.

it is not until months later that the coughing finally becomes so severe he feels it sharp in his chest.

it's too hard to hold it back when his friends visit him.

he's met with concerned looks, with worried touches.

pathetic. pathetic. pathetic. he's really pathetic like this, unable to sit up without coughing up blood (and petals, of course).

nanami comes, hinata comes, even kuzuryuu and peko and souda and sonia and gundam and nidai and akane and-

they are saying their goodbyes, he realizes. he is dying after a boring, unsatisfying, average life. they will go on to do great things. he will die a death devoid of hope. he will die with only the talent of luck, and he will never- no, he shouldn't have even hoped for- it was too unrealistic for him to be able to-

the world is spinning, but a hand on his arm stills him.

"you okay?" hinata asks, and komaeda flashes a smile that does not even try to be anything but fake.

"of course, hinata-kun!" 

"i was just saying i should be going back now. it's pretty late."

"ah, alright, hinata-kun." his smile does not waver. the falseness of it seems to freeze his face.

he does not want hinata to go. someone as pathetic as him does not have the right to ask him to stay. 

who is he to keep hinata by his side? to keep him, someone so talented and capable, in a room with someone as useless and pathetic as him? 

his head spins. 

hinata leaves.

.

hushed voices.

"the worst one yet-" "soon, he-" "-only a matter of time."

it's him. of course, they're taking about him. he feels himself drift in and out of reality. time is passing, but he can't tell how fast, how much.

"komaeda," a voice eventually pierces through his haze. how long as he been here?

"komaeda, are you listening?" hinata says, and komaeda lifts his gaze to the other boy's face.

his chest hurts. this time, he wishes hinata wasn't here.

"i have something i want to tell you. you're my friend, and i thought you should know- i mean, i want you to know- there's something i haven't told anyone in our class."

komaeda coughs, blood rising in his throat. he feels the soft velvet of a petal on the back of his tongue. 

he wants to die, he thinks, he wants it to end.

hinata keeps talking.

"my talent- it doesn't exist. i don't have one. i'm only in our class because, well, they wanted to run some tests on me. i was a reserve course student, but they offered to let me in the main course if i let them run tests at the end of the year. so i'm average i guess. not talented." 

he's rambling, but the words are not making sense.

not talented?

he's coughing again, and hinata shoots him a worried look.

"are you okay?"

not talented, he said. average, he said.

the coughs become more and more violent. 

his aura, the feeling of kinship between them- he's normal? not talented?

the towel he's pressing to his mouth comes back red red red red red. there are two- no, three- petals on his tongue, grinding between his molars, stuck to the roof of his mouth.

he laughs, wild and unbidden.

hanahaki byou is a curse borne of love.

.

he leaves the hospital the next week.

"a miraculous recovery," the doctor calls it. 

"a stroke of some wicked luck," souda calls it. 

"a blessing from the high heavens," sonia calls it.

"a merciful gift from the damned," gundam calls it.

"we got the good end," nanami smiles.

hinata is not there.

komaeda shrugs that off; why should he care?

.

hinata's phone dings in his room, unread messages piling up one after the other.

7:34pm  
akane: komaeda-kun is out of the hospital! still a toothpick though

7:42pm  
ibuki: ibuki-chan is delighted to tell you that our one and only komaeda-kun has been freed of his bedrest!!!!!!

7:56pm  
souda: dude, komaeda's been released. we've gotta celebrate

8:05pm  
nidai: KOMAEDA IS OUTSIDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LIVING!!! BREATHING!!! SHITTING!!!!!!!

in the bathroom, hinata stares at himself in the mirror, shock and horror plain on his face.

bloods drips down his chin and into the sink.

his eyes are wide, and his lips are parted to reveal a perfectly red petal.


End file.
